At each annual assessment between ages 11–16, life events experienced by the child and his/her family were assessed using the Family Changes and Adjustments Questionnaire (Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994). This questionnaire asked mothers whether 18 life events (listed in Table 1) happened in the past year. Events were coded 0 (did not happen in past year) or 1 (did happen in the past year). No measure of internal consistency (e.g., alpha) is calculated for this scale because events appearing on the checklist can and do occur independently. For each age, separate life events sum scores of the items were calculated. Life events data were available for 80–93% (M = 86%) of the sample at each time point.
